Hitting on the Ohio Education system, I'm growing increasingly furious with my son's HONOR'S History teacher, and her incredibly republican, batshit crazy, not presented as opinion, bashing of the president, and presentation of conspiracy theories as fact in modern history. I have spoken to the school administrators about it, presented copies of the handouts, book lists, and other such items as proof, and was told that I may be asked to speak in front of the school board regarding my dissatisfaction about her teaching.

Seriously. They spent a month of a "modern american history class" being lectured about how Obama is the evil in the world, and why he needs to be impeached, and using youtube videos as in class videos to support it.

We can argue all we like about whether gun control would have any effect on homicides by fireamr, or whether the statistic would just swicth.But I have yet to see anyone actually argue that gun control would just shift the suicides by firearm into another category. A gun is horribly efficient at killing, and shooting yourself with the intent to kill more or less rules out any chance at ressucitation.

That, of course, also opens the debate on the right to decide the end of ones own life (or the lack of such a right) which is probably why it isn't mentioned (at least it isn't in anything that is carried across the pond). If that claimed right is a reason to oppose gun controle, then I would just add that I would prefer it not be selfadministered, and in the hands of trained physicians to make it as painless and safe as possible. (Note the whole sentence and context here, IF-THEN)

I'm gonna take that suicide line and run a bit with it - don't get surprised if I contradict myself constatly, it's basically ramblings about the validity of considerind suicides in gun-realted death numbers.

So basically, suicides shouldn't be counted in gun-related deaths. That makes sense as long as you can uphold that the suicide would have happened without guns anyway, moving the onus of the cause from the weapon to the user. The only trouble with that theory is that it implies that one suicide equals another, which isn't quite true (but may actually be true enough).

If memory serves, in gun-restricted countries, the chief means of suicide is medication overdose for women and (if memory serves) hanging for men. Thing is, both of these methods have a few things working againt them, off the top of my head: preparation time (and thus, time to think things through), lethality (much lower), and perceied pain (for men, at least)

Thinking it trough, it does make sense to say that "some suicides can't be prevented by removing guns, and shouldn't be counted as gun-related killings", but it ALSO does make sense to say that "some suicides could have been prevented by removing guns, and thus they should be counted."

*Goes off rambling in his beard*

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Put me in the camp of lumping suicide numbers into gun death statistics is a ploy to inflate numbers for media use. I don't care if the suicide could have been prevented with a gun or not. And I'm a proponent of gun law reform.

My problem with it, is that it leads to statements like Koatanga's, that includes those statistics, and doesn't account for them. It's just tossed out there, as a shocking statement.

I consider it a very Fox News type of thing, and one that makes me gag a little when I see it happen.

Or it could be because audiences are morons and will follow shock statements more than a long, thought-out, complex argument that defends both sides and lets the audience decide for itself (a.k.a. a freaking basic essay).

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

So I continued to the next day:9 murders8 shot by police1 accidental death (2 year old shot himself while reaching for gum)1 broken link1 suicide - man shot himself after gunfight with police

I find it odd that for a site including suicides as gun deaths, in which the majority are supposedly suicides, that I would only find two cases of self-inflicted gunshot deaths, one being a toddler and one being a guy who killed himself after a gunfight with police, in 30 gun deaths. Neither are traditional suicides where a person eats a gun out of depression.

I did check one more day. I picked February 14th, Valentine's Day, figuring it would be a depressing day for lonely people seeing other people being happy with partners while they have nobody. I found one proper suicide, but it was a murder-suicide. Still no pure case of "man shoots himself out of depression" without cops or a murder or anything else involved.

I could go on compiling stats, but to be honest it's a bit depressing seeing photo after photo of crying family members. Feel free to research it yourself if you think you can find more suicides than I did.

I gotta say something, and I'm sure some here remember me talking about it, but I almost ate my gun, in a bout of depression, several years ago...

The only reason I didn't do it was because I took my time driving several miles out of town, which kind of cooled me off to the whole idea of suicide.

Had I not cared about where I was gonna be found dead, I'd have blown my head off with it in my bedroom since it was so easy.

I sold my gun after that, and I dont have the itch to buy a new one... but if I did, I'd prolly want a background check performed on me, because... maybe trying to buy a gun after a serious bout of depression seems like a really really bad idea, even if I'm much better these days.

So I continued to the next day:9 murders8 shot by police1 accidental death (2 year old shot himself while reaching for gum)1 broken link1 suicide - man shot himself after gunfight with police

I find it odd that for a site including suicides as gun deaths, in which the majority are supposedly suicides, that I would only find two cases of self-inflicted gunshot deaths, one being a toddler and one being a guy who killed himself after a gunfight with police, in 30 gun deaths. Neither are traditional suicides where a person eats a gun out of depression.

I did check one more day. I picked February 14th, Valentine's Day, figuring it would be a depressing day for lonely people seeing other people being happy with partners while they have nobody. I found one proper suicide, but it was a murder-suicide. Still no pure case of "man shoots himself out of depression" without cops or a murder or anything else involved.

I could go on compiling stats, but to be honest it's a bit depressing seeing photo after photo of crying family members. Feel free to research it yourself if you think you can find more suicides than I did.

I don't think that necessarily means that they should be discounted, as guns are a much (by a mile) more effective way to commit suicide than any other popular choice, when considering gun laws. However, it is in my opinion a misleading data point when it's generalized into the same category as murders.

PS: Probably why you aren't finding suicides...According to the site you linked:

Slate wrote:Of course, these figures are incomplete. Not all reports get caught by @GunDeaths’ news alerts or his followers. Suicides, which are estimated to make up as much as 60 percent of gun deaths, typically go unreported. Nevertheless, we at Slate want to assemble the data as best we can.

That also means that if Slate is where your original data came from, then it was already mostly excluding suicides.

Fridmarr wrote:That also means that if Slate is where your original data came from, then it was already mostly excluding suicides.

Yes, the numbers there tally: 4,488 US casualties in the Iraq war vs. the 4,566 currently reporting on Slate. I didn't notice that it was excluding most suicides. That would have saved me some grim research.

So I continued to the next day:9 murders8 shot by police1 accidental death (2 year old shot himself while reaching for gum)1 broken link1 suicide - man shot himself after gunfight with police

I find it odd that for a site including suicides as gun deaths, in which the majority are supposedly suicides, that I would only find two cases of self-inflicted gunshot deaths, one being a toddler and one being a guy who killed himself after a gunfight with police, in 30 gun deaths. Neither are traditional suicides where a person eats a gun out of depression.

I did check one more day. I picked February 14th, Valentine's Day, figuring it would be a depressing day for lonely people seeing other people being happy with partners while they have nobody. I found one proper suicide, but it was a murder-suicide. Still no pure case of "man shoots himself out of depression" without cops or a murder or anything else involved.

I could go on compiling stats, but to be honest it's a bit depressing seeing photo after photo of crying family members. Feel free to research it yourself if you think you can find more suicides than I did.

If it's using news articles as a way to track, it's going to be flawed. Most news organizations have a strict policy regarding the reporting of suicides. You wont find news articles about them, because it's a moral / ethical decision by news agencies to not report on suicides, unless the social status of the person involved would make it a "news story" above and beyond the fact that it was a suicide.

If you are looking for gun deaths related to suicide, you are going to need to find a place that reports based off of medical records, or death certificates, etc... because it wont be covered in the news.

I just think it's a bit off to be all patriotic and go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan over, or using as an excuse anyway, the 5000 people killed in 9/11, but it's anti-American to even discuss gun control when nearly 5000 people die in the last 6 months. Isn't that a bit odd?

It's like it's fine to lose 5000 people as long as no buildings get destroyed. I'm generally not one for conspiracy nonsense, but this sure does seem like a case where anything that happens to the assets of the top 1% gets billions spent in retaliation (spent with the defense contractors owned by the top 1%, of course), but as long as the top 1% aren't inconvenienced by the rabble killing each other, it's all OK.

Because the numbers of deaths are similar, but the response is completely different.

Koatanga wrote:I would prefer to keep suicides out of the equation, actually.

I just think it's a bit off to be all patriotic and go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan over, or using as an excuse anyway, the 5000 people killed in 9/11, but it's anti-American to even discuss gun control when nearly 5000 people die in the last 6 months. Isn't that a bit odd?

It's like it's fine to lose 5000 people as long as no buildings get destroyed. I'm generally not one for conspiracy nonsense, but this sure does seem like a case where anything that happens to the assets of the top 1% gets billions spent in retaliation (spent with the defense contractors owned by the top 1%, of course), but as long as the top 1% aren't inconvenienced by the rabble killing each other, it's all OK.

Because the numbers of deaths are similar, but the response is completely different.

I think it's a bit off to not be willing to discuss gun control regardless of your stance on the wars. It's an important issue that warrants discussion. Fortunately, it has received quite a lot of discussion from all sides.

The rest of that though is an appallingly stupid comparison, even by the standards of this thread. It's just more of the tin-foil hat stuff expanding the previously proffered "Eisenhowerian" economic model or whatever you want to call that nonsense.

Gun Violence in some of America's largest cities is a large problem. But it doesn't get the press that other things get, including the wars, etc... Gun Control may be getting a lot of media play, but it's not getting traction in the one place that it should. D.C. I've gone from a very staunch "Gun Control isn't going to make a difference" stance to a "We really need to start doing whatever we can to minimize the deaths" stance. Sure, I still have some caveats about how I'd go about it, but to me, I think it's fair to wonder why we are so mum about things like gang violence, and the like, but then when a lone gunman blows people away, or goes on a tear jerking, heart wrenching massacre, or our soldiers die, we are all about it.

Why is it that our home grown gun violence doesn't get the media play? Do I think it's a 1%'er conspiracy? Not really, but I don't think that it's stupid to postulate ideas about it.

Gun Violence in some of America's largest cities is a large problem. But it doesn't get the press that other things get, including the wars, etc... Gun Control may be getting a lot of media play, but it's not getting traction in the one place that it should. D.C. I've gone from a very staunch "Gun Control isn't going to make a difference" stance to a "We really need to start doing whatever we can to minimize the deaths" stance. Sure, I still have some caveats about how I'd go about it, but to me, I think it's fair to wonder why we are so mum about things like gang violence, and the like, but then when a lone gunman blows people away, or goes on a tear jerking, heart wrenching massacre, or our soldiers die, we are all about it.

Why is it that our home grown gun violence doesn't get the media play? Do I think it's a 1%'er conspiracy? Not really, but I don't think that it's stupid to postulate ideas about it.

Obviously, I didn't say it was stupid to postulate ideas about it. The comparison of the reaction to 9/11 vs gun violence and then attempting to correlate that to the top 1%, is stupid though.

Gun control has been debated quite a bit in DC and in state legislatures across the country. Just because people haven't changed their stance, or no new major legislation has come of it, doesn't mean it hasn't been discussed.

If it hasn't changed is in part because of the Gun Lobby... which dumps a lot of money into the congressmen, not to mention it makes a lot of money off of sales of the guns and the ammo that goes with it.

I think if you put the billions into working out measures for gun control that you put in to the war effort, you could have the problem sussed in short order.

As I see it, the top 1% don't benefit from spending billions on gun control measures, so they aren't interested in doing it. Scaring the crap out of the public to the extent that they can keep building tanks the army doesn't even want is much more profitable.